Michael Clifford: Large Garda presence means protests end with a whimper
Garda speak to a lone demonstrator on O'Connell Street in Dublin city centre ahead of the planned anti-lockdown protest on Wednesday. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
For a while yesterday, in a salubrious enclave of Dublin 4, it would have been possible to kid yourself that this was a typical Paddy’s Day. A good-time vibe permeated the crowd gathered around the bandstand in Herbert Park.
They had come to voice their general displeasure at the lockdown and get a few other things off their chests. But they could just as easily have congregated for a knees-up.
Most of the two hundred or so people made an effort with something green. Kids were getting their faces painted. Knots of adults stood around chatting. From the bandstand, musicians belted out a few tunes.
The brew on display tended more towards coffee than alcohol, but that didn’t dampen the elevated spirits.
Nobody was masked. There was no social distancing. It was as if there was some cocoon around these people that made them impervious to infection.
They are the chosen ones, exercising mind over matter to demonstrate that Covid is a condition dreamed up by George Soros, Bill Gates and RTÉ.
Not everybody subscribed to the conspiracy theories so popular at these gatherings during the pandemic.
Claire is from Donnycarney and she came along because she at the end of her tether with the lockdown.
“I’m in catering and I haven’t worked in a year and I still don’t know if I’ll have a job to be back to,” she said.
Her anger was evident among others who declined to speak on the basis that they don’t talk to “fake news”.
Presently, the mood did take on an edge. This was largely due to the arrival of a separate band of protestors who had marched down from RTÉ.
These people looked a tab disappointed as the RTÉ thing had earlier gone down as badly as the station’s repeated attempts at comedy.
The security on view at the Donnybrook campus was a thing to behold. It was as if God had dropped in to do a pre-record for the . Rows of vans from the Public Order unit lined up across the radio centre carpark.
Horses from the equine unit were called up, a pair of them hunting around for something to graze.
And throughout the whole place, dozens of members of the force stood, masked, arms folded, scattered in formation, ready to either repel the enemy or break out with another shot at Jerusalema, depending on how the day went.
Faced with such odds, the 70 or so protestors realised that any attempt at violence was going to end very badly. So they stood around and fumed a little and some of them did their best to look angry.
Brian Dunne didn’t look angry but he walked up and down across the barrier erected at the entrance to RTÉ, wearing a white shirt with a red George’s Cross on it and waving a little tricolour.
“Masks, social distancing, no man can rule another man under any guise,” he said when asked what he was at.
“People think the cross is to do with England but the George’s Cross is the shield of righteousness which is earned through faith.”
He felt this was a good day to protest, as St Patrick was associated with the trinity.
After a while, some of the protestors mounted the overpass outside the campus and did a bit of shouting about corruption and the Government and said some mean things about the guards.
Other planned protests at the Garden or Remembrance, the Spire on O’Connell Street and at Leinster House all came to more or less naught.
There have been occasions during the lockdown when Garda planning and actions have been the subject of criticism, but on Wednesday the heavy show of strength did act to ensure the day went off peacefully.
One can only hope that the reckless approach to Covid restrictions among the hundreds did not afford the virus an opportunity to go to work.
By the time the protests ended, 16 people had been arrested across the capital.
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